Starting number one tomorrow will be 2008 winner Sebastian Loeb, 1.5 secs behind him in second is his Citroen team-mate Sebastian Ogier. Third is last year's winner Jari-Matti Latvala, who must still have Markku Alén ringing in his ears. The rally legend saying it will be a 'catastrophe' if anyone other than a Finn wins the event.
Loeb entered the day's final stage 1.9 secs behind Ogier after Loeb dropped time with a cracked windscreen, caused by stones being flicked up be Ogier's car on the Lahti superspecial. The seven-times World Champion employed the frequently used road-order tactics, coming into a time control 1 min late, handing himself a 10 sec penalty and second on the road. The plan backfired when Ogier realised what Loeb had done, and Ogier himself slowed down enough to drop behind Loeb, forcing Loeb to start first on the road tomorrow. Then both driver's plan backfired spectacularly when it emerged that Jari-Matti Latvala would start the final day in third, 2.6 secs behind leader Loeb.
Best of the rest is Petter Solberg in fourth. His private Citroen suffered severe tyre wear during today's stages, but is less than 30 secs behind leader Loeb. A further half-minute behind Solberg is Mads Ostberg in the first of the Stobart cars, despite a spin this morning. On a charge and in sixth is the other factory Ford of Mikko Hirvonen. Hirvonen lost a vast amount of time yesterday with a lot of problems in his Fiesta, the legacy of clipping a tree on the opening test of the rally. He is 28.6 secs behind Ostberg, and is looking good to catch the Norwegian.
Only 7.5 secs behind Hirvonen is the first of the MINI's. Dani Sordo is sitting 7th, and is coming under pressure from team-mate Kris Meeke, who is eighth, and 14.8 secs behind the Spaniard. Sordo struggled with a sensor problem and misfire in the MINI, and an extremely rare mistake from Sordo almost put the car in one of the unforgiving Finnish ditches. Meeke has not had all the luck today either, his car refusing to fire up after stopping between stages. This lead to Meeke arriving 2 mins later than planned, thus the 20 sec penalty was awarded. In the confusion, neither Meeke nor co-driver Paul Nagle, who is making his début on the rally, re-secured the rear doors of the MINI, which lead to them opening & closing in the stage.
Meeke has said that he is pacing himself this weekend, to gain experience on an event that rewards experience. Meeke has only sampled the event 3 times, and all, bar 2005, have ended in retirement. His 2005 event netted him 39th overall after he was forced to SupeRally. His 2006 start ended with a spectacular crash into the notoriously hard Finnish trees.
“I know I can drive faster on these roads. I’m coming to corners and I could have been more committed and faster, but as soon as I do that, there’s going to be a corner waiting to catch me out.”
“I would love to be fighting to win this rally. everybody would love to be fighting to win Rally Finland, but at the same time I have to be realistic. I need the experience, I need to get to know the event. If I go off the road, I have to come back here in 12 months time and start again and I won’t have gone forward for a year, that’s no good. Yes, it is frustrating that I’m not pushing harder, but this is the only way to do it. There will be plenty of time to fight in the future.” said the 2009 Intercontinental Rally Champion.
Rounding out the Top 10 are Juho Hanninen, leader of the S-WRC, and Henning Solberg, 2.1 secs behind the Finn but over 2 mins off the leaders pace.
(Full S-WRC, P-WRC and Academy reports to follow)
No comments:
Post a Comment